Today at TCJ, we've got a look at Reid Psaltis' Kingdom/Order, courtesy of Ryan Carey. It's a good one:
Eric Drooker’s groundbreaking Flood comes to mind throughout this book, not only because both are entirely “silent” works, but because Psaltis often veers into Drooker-esque woodcut-style illustration, yet the focus here is tighter, although arguably no less ambitious. One could even argue that the plethora of socio-economic problems Drooker touches upon in his book all stem from the separation of man from the natural world that Psaltis explores in the pages of his. Indeed, I’m sure someone of the “Green Anarchist” political persuasion would say precisely that, and Psaltis’ thick, expressive, detailed line manages to convey a lot of the universality he’s aiming to imbue his story with. When his protagonist is curious at the outset, it shows in every facial expression, every “tic” of his body language, and the same holds true when his feelings “evolve” into fear, complacency, happiness, and finally into aggression. You know right where our man is every step of the way here, emotionally as well as physically, and that’s all down to the power and precision of Psaltis’ rich, nuanced illustration.
In satellite Journal contributions, Tom Kaczynski followed up his recent Eddy Current column with a series of tweets on American superhero comics, urbanization, architecture & more. You start here, and yes, it has numbers.
While this weekend's San Diego Intellectual Property Convention is sure to release its fair share of comics adjacent news, you would have a very hard time convincing me that there will be any greater and more up-my-alley advertisement for a Marvel property than this sixteen second video of Paul Rudd & Michael Douglas hamboning back in 2015. I have liked loved hamboning far longer and with more consistency than I've loved reading, and while this video is a bit too short and would have benefited from a longer build, it's still mainstream hamboning that may introduce it to a wider audience, thus ensuring a future full of hamboning.
